Tag: MTV

Usually when I hear Nick Diaz talk, I think of Rain Man — a savant in the cage, who doesn’t do well in social situations. Think about it. Diaz could have been dropped in the movie with Tom Cruise without a script and given what everyone (except those of us have seen his interviews) would consider an Oscar-worthy performance.

More exposure for mixed martial arts is always a good thing, so when we saw this awesome mini MMA documentary “3″ that MTV UK is promoting, we figured we’d pass it along so The Potato Nation could check it out and help spread the word.

We spoke with the director of the project, Demetrio Marquez about the film yesterday and the independent British filmmaker described the self-funded project as a labor of love of a massive mixed martial arts fan.

I admit that I haven’t watched many episodes of Bully Beatdown, mostly because the first episode I caught during the first season that saw the bully beat the regional fighter he squared off against. It ruined it for me. It was a misnomer consdidering the bully didn’t get beat down, kind of like Dancing with the Stars which doesn’t feature anyone most peope would consider a star and what they’re doing on the show doesn’t really resemble dancing. False advertising, in my opinion.

Well, I happened to be flipping through the channels on my satellite receiver on Thursday when I stumbled across the episode above featuring Jeremy Horn, so I left it on MTV and watched the show all the way through.

I knew from the beginning that the show advertised for tough guys to apply and they would be chosen based on some sort of bully mentality towards their friends. I did not find out until a few days ago that not one of the bullies had in fact, ever bullied the actors that have played the part of the victims.

I spoke with a friend that helped with the production of the show and was told that most of the bully/victim combo had never even met prior to the taping of each episode.

Take bully Jon from the last episode with Jake Shields. Last year he was on the Fox TV show Battle of the Bods where Jonathan proclaimed to be a professional stuntman as he judged the bodies of young women.

Even though Bully Beatdown is filled with actors the fights are mostly real. The stuntmen do try to fight back against the Pro MMA fighters but their payday comes not from the 10,000 prize money offered up but from the money guaranteed on the contract they signed going into the fight.

Look, I know you have to suspend disbelief to some extent whenever you’re watching a "reality television" show — we know that none of those women are really there for the love of Ray J , and Heidi and Spencer are actually cousins in real life — but was it too much to ask that real bullies would get their comeuppance on Bully Beatdown? How you gonna do us like that, Mayhem?

All right, I’m done trying to force myself not to like “Bully Beatdown.” The moment Michael Westbrook showed up to unleash a whipping on a guy who seems like a genuine jackass, that’s the moment I became a fan. Not surprisingly, the less scripted “Mayhem” Miller is, the better he gets. In this one he actually has a little bit of trouble convincing the bully in question to agree to certain doom, but manages to push the guy over the edge when he says, “You got one ball, please tell me you got two.”

Did I mention the bully was holding a basketball at the time? Because it’s kind of crucial to this particular burn.

Again, this isn’t really MMA, and it probably isn’t especially helpful to the sport’s overall image (though I also can’t see how it’s all that harmful), but dammit, it’s fun.

I want to hate Jason "Mayhem" Miller’s “Bully Beatdown.” I really do. Not only is it an incredibly stupid idea that bastardizes and trivializes MMA and bullying (both of which are close to my heart), it also features Mayhem acting the fool for MTV. And yet, after watching episode one (which doesn’t work when I embed it for some reason), I was actually somewhat entertained.

Miller brings in Tony “The Gun” Bonello (who was bullied pretty bad by “Ninja” Rua in his last outing) to rough up a guy who’s been bullying his older brother while also paradoxically sporting a tattoo that reads “Family First.” What follows isn’t even close to MMA (one round of grappling followed by one round of kickboxing is obviously some bullshit), but it is oddly satisfying in the way that seeing a bully get bullied always is. Think of it as "Pros vs. Joes" with more personal acrimony and less time wasted on soccer and swimming and other nonsense.

After the jump, something only kind of related to MMA, but close enough.

What better way to introduce MMA to the tweenage MTV generation than by having Jason Miller‘s crazy ass host a show where bullies get their asses kicked by professional fighters? Premiering Sunday, March 22nd, at 9:30 p.m., MTV’s Bully Beatdown is being produced by Mark Burnett Productions (Survivor, The Apprentice, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?). Basically, pencil-necked geeks come crying to Miller about the people who have been picking on them, and Mayhem gives the bullies a chance to "pick on someone their own size." If the bullies win, they get to pocket $10,000, though it’s very unlikely that any of them will actually be able to collect. If they lose, their victims get the ten grand — which will most likely be bullied away from them as soon as the Bully Beatdown crew leaves town.

Below: One day before he was killed in a car accident, TapouT’s Charles "Mask" Lewis did an interview and photo shoot for DUB Magazine. The footage is below. Above everything else, let’s remember Lewis for the endless passion he had for the sport of mixed martial arts.

The smirky dude above is Kristopher "Kit" Cope, a former Muay Thai champion with an unfortunate MMA record of 1-4. You might know him as the dude who used to be engaged to Gina Carano, or the guy who got hit with a steroid suspension after getting steamrolled by Rob McCullough at WEC 25, or as one of the subjects in MTV’s True Life episode "I’m a Muay Thai Fighter." According to his Wikipedia page, "He once armwrestled a warewolf [sic] and won."